BREAKING NEWS

BREAKING NEWS

Stringer winners fire 9-under

RAY BROOK – A sunny warm day, family and good friends, and some darn good golf.

That was all part of the experience Saturday as the Saranac Lake Golf Club hosted the sixth annual Larry Stringer Memorial Scholarship tournament. The four-person scramble drew a full field of 18 teams. Groups took two trips around the nine-hole layout with a par round set at 70.

In a tight battle for the top, the team of Dana and Max Tarantelli, Zach Quinn and Edvin Radoncic took the win with a 9-under par 61. Dana Tarantelli said their team really came through on the putting greens. They were the only group of the day to record a birdie on the fourth hole, which had a brutally tricky pin placement on a downslope near the front of the green.

Tom Strack, Shalena and Charlie Duprey and Jim Knight were the runner-up team, just one shot back with a 62. Two teams finished with rounds of 63, and a tiebreaker was used to determine third and fourth place. Josh Dann, his father Bill, Scott Shatraw and Scott Nichols earned third, and the group of Gary Konkoski, John Tice, Bruce Smith and Ray Martin took fourth.

Most of the remaining teams turned in below-par rounds, while some were at par or just above. The Baker Clan, which included Carol, Cathy, Colleen and Clyde, were awarded the most honest team award for rounding out the field with an 87.

Three members of the Pickreign family – John, Larry and Larry Jr. – teamed up with Richard Pacharz for a memorable round. They finished with a 66, and along the way they had a rare eagle on Ray Brook’s par-four ninth hole. Pacharz explained at the post-tournament pig roast barbecue at the Waterhole just how they notched the eagle.

“We were hitting our second shot from 107 yards out, and I knocked mine about eight inches away from the pin,” he said. “Larry Jr. was next, and I told him ‘the only way you’ll get inside that is put it in the cup.’ He made the shot. That was fantastic.”

With the eagle, the foursome nailed down one of four skins won during the tournament. Mike and Matt Laramee, Mike Knapp and Tim Loftus earned a skin with an eagle on 17 (the par-5 eighth), and Sid and Sandy Cole, Stephen Martin and Ron Jones also won a skin with a birdie on 16, which was the seventh hole played from the short tee as a par-three.

The tournament is held each June in honor of Larry Stringer, an owner and bartender at the Waterhole who loved the game of golf. The popular event has raised thousands of dollars in scholarship money for graduating Saranac Lake High School students.

Georgia Murphy, who co-organizers the tournament alongside Larry Pickreign, said more than 120 people were fed at the post-tournament party at the Waterhole. She said the date for next year’s seventh annual Larry Stringer tournament has been set for June 14, 2014.